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| A woman mourns with the framed picture of a man said to be among the 30 Ethiopian victims killed by members of the militant Islamic State in Libya, in the capital Addis Ababa, April 21, 2015. Ethiopia said on Monday that the 30 Christians shown being shot and beheaded in Libya on a video purportedly made by Islamic State were its citizens (REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri). |
The
following excerpts are from AINA.org:
WASHINGTON
-- After viewing the video that was released April 19, showing the
murder of two groups of Ethiopian Christians by Islamic State
terrorists, Jewish and Christian human rights groups have issued a
joint statement calling on President Obama to intervene with force to
stop the ongoing extermination of Christians in the Middle East.
In
a gruesome repeat of the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians in
February, masked IS militants marched 15 Ethiopian Christians along
Libya’s shore of the Mediterranean Sea and beheaded them. Another
group of 15 was shot in another murderous act in an area of Libyan
shrub land.
Open
Doors USA, a global advocacy group for the persecuted, was joined by
the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an international Jewish human rights
organization, in condemning the killings and calling for the United
States to intervene.
In
a joint statement, the groups claimed to have alerted Western
governments for months “that a religious genocide of Christians was
taking place” with little response, and took particular aim at
President Obama for his lack of action.
“While
we welcome the White House acknowledgment that these victims were
targeted because of their faith, much more needs to be done,” wrote
David Curry, president and CEO of Open Doors, Rabbi Abraham Cooper,
associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, along with colleague
Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, who serves with him as director of
interfaith issues.
They
chided the president to fully acknowledge the “religious extremism”
and “theologically fueled hatred” that is at the heart of Islamic
State terrorism. Likewise, they called on him to lead NATO to “forge
an action plan” to protect Christians in the Middle East.
“We
must not stand idly by and watch as thousands of Christians are
murdered for their faith,” they said.
Calling
the Islamic persecution of Christians a type of “Nazi ideology”
that unabated “will continue to infect the hearts and minds of the
ever-growing number of youth around the world,” they said, “The
time to act is now.”
Read
more by clicking below:
Human Rights Leaders Plead With Obama to Stop 'Nazi' Campaign Against Christians
